


Words we couldn't say

by Bananas45



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Poor Thor (Marvel), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 06:37:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14538822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananas45/pseuds/Bananas45
Summary: Spoilers for infinity war!!!The worst and best part about grief is that life goes on.





	Words we couldn't say

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Невысказанные слова](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213677) by [LaurielAnarwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurielAnarwen/pseuds/LaurielAnarwen)



> I just had to write this. It's been done already but my god I needed to give Thor something!!! He's had it so rough and his new found stoicism is mildly unsettling. Here's my offering to try and fix everything but I'm such an angst lord that I couldn't even properly fix it! 
> 
> Enjoy!

The worst and best part about grief is that life goes on. Even when the world ends, half of it at least (though all of it for Thor) life still goes on. In the wake of the destruction, the wild sobs from people around him, he can’t bring himself to also be upset because it’s not over, it can’t be. He wants to shout at them; Just get up, it’s not that bad. At least you have something.  
He has nothing. Their grief makes him bitter and he lies in bed with unspoken words on his tongue; 

“At least you have a planet” 

“At least you have a people” 

He gets angrier and angrier but that would be childish and he’s not a child now. 

Earth is quiet no matter where you go now. Half the noise has been silenced and the other half is muted so whenever the floorboards creek or the wind whistles too loud, Thor’s heart leaps with hope that maybe it’s him. It never is.  
Whenever they talk about loss, think of ways to bring people back, they talk of the half that are gone, who crumbled away dramatically. Thor can’t bring himself to ask of those that went before that- those who just died. Like Heimdall or his friends, his people, his bro- Hah. He’s not going there. His nose tingles in that way he’s only just beginning to get used to.  
“They can’t just be gone” Steve is saying. A meeting pulled together in one of the undestroyed rooms in Wakanda.  
“Sometimes people die, Steve” Natasha says, soft and into her palm. “Maybe we should be worrying about those who are left”  
“Not under our watch they don’t!” Steve shouts and then pauses, quieter now. “I just got him back, I wont lose him again-”  
Thor laughs, sharp in his throat ‘lose him again’. Oh fuck off. “Ah, come on, Stevey. It’s not that bad”  
Steve’s eyes are on him, mouth open to rebuke and unshed tears in his eyes. Thor has changed, no one has said it but they’re all thinking it. He’s harsh and biting in ways he never was before and he can tell it unnerves them but he won't apologise because they can’t comprehend the last few months. Apocalypse, we’ve all been there, sure but twice in one year feels excessive. At least it wasn’t caused by a sibling this time. Then again, if it had, at least it would mean he had some family left-  
“Thor” It’s Natasha, voice concerned. “Is that okay?”  
He’s not been listening but then again he never listened in those meeting anyway, even when the world was safe and he had a planet.  
“Yup” He mutters. They don’t talk to him like they used to but then again, their social glue was Stark and he’s presumed dead. Apparently something went done while Thor was gone, the explanations make it sound incredibly petty. Humans are selfish little petty creatures sometimes. He laughs, at what would seem like nothing to them and Banner gives him a look like he’s gone off the rails, It’s just that recently, he’s sounded more and more like Loki. He sort of understands him now too, which makes this whole grief thing a lot worse because the first time round it had this ‘good riddance’ ring to it but now...Who knows. It’s probably best not to give it too much thought. 

He walks back to the house they gave him- They had a lot to spare or so Shuri had said, laughing through her tears- Thor had laughed too. It was a funny joke.  
They say - who says, Thor doesn’t know but ‘They say’ has a poetic ring to it- That grief is worse when you’re alone with your thoughts but Thor disagrees. The others annoy him so much that his states are either ‘grieving and annoyed’ or ‘grieving and lonely’ and he’ll take lonely anyday. The cottage is small and neat and reminds Thor a little of home but that’s not something he likes to think about too much. There is a figure outside, the light is too dim to make out who. Thor wonders who would have the audacity to come and speak with him. It’s probably Banner who seems to think they have some deep connection after the whole space ordeal. It’s mildly annoying.  
“Banner. It’s very sweet of you to worry-” He calls, getting closer.  
“Oh gods”  
It’s said on a strange trenchant little breath that is uncannily like- Oh gods indeed. His heart stops, not at all like the first time this happened, this is unexpected and pounding and lights a fire in his stomach that makes his head ring like the whole world is brighter all of a sudden from that one voice-  
“I thought you were dead” Loki says, the words catching in his throat and Thor wants to punch him for sounding so broken. He looks a mess, clothes torn and dirty and cuts uncleaned from the fight they’d lost. He’s even panting, like he only just arrived. He’s too messy to be an illusion because Loki is a narcissist- but an alive narcissist apparently. The wind whistles through unkempt, blood tangled strands of black hair and Loki looks devastated.  
“You thought I was dead?” Thor barks, laughing so hard he almost wheezes and he stares as Loki- Genuine and here and not dead and gods it’s unhealthy how many times he’s actually had to rationalise Loki being alive these last few months- Walks towards him.  
“Last I heard you’d thrown yourself into a star and then-I’m not sure if you noticed, Brother- Half the universe died. Forgive me for being concerned you were one of them” Loki snaps, Tight lipped and tensed shouldered, his words measured and viper precise and so desperately trying to reel in his emotions.  
Thor gapes, genuinely speechless that Loki is shouting at him for making him worried. The cheek. The nerve. He’s never felt so angry but he doesn’t know what to say. He thinks of the pained gasps of Loki, how terrified he’d looked in his final moments and all retorts die in his throat. Loki seems to notice, eyes widening with guilt before settling into a frown.  
“Where did you get that eye?” Loki points, slender finger snapping up at it as he stares with a grimace.  
“Found it” Thor mutters.  
“It doesn’t suit you” Loki tilts his head.  
“Yeah well.” Thor clears his throat and they both fall silent. Thor can hear Loki swallow as they look each other up and down. The barriers they broke, finally, on board that stolen ship with the remnants of their home, are back up again and they’ve forgotten how to speak without hurting each other. “Why did you come here if you thought I was dead?”  
Loki’s eyes drop to the floor before Thor can read them. “Because I-” He stops himself, grinning as his tongue balances on his teeth. “Because I thought they would be mourning”  
Thor steps closer because Loki’s voice is shaking in a way that sounds awfully close to tears.  
“And I didn’t know how to”  
They fall silent again, Loki’s sobs are blessedly quiet compared to everyone else's recently and he gets over himself quickly. Thor almost, almost hugs him but Loki ruins it by speaking.  
“Was it realistic?” He laughs, eyes sparkling with genuine and sudden delight. “I have to say, it’s my best trick yet-”  
Thor backhands him and Loki’s head whips round as he grabs his cheek, gasp hauled from his throat. Off course this would be a game to Loki, off course it would be because Loki can’t take anything remotely seriously ever.  
“Ow” Loki says, sardonic and soft. “You haven’t changed-”  
Thor grabs him, hauling him close and he feels the way Loki tenses. “And neither have you”  
As he pulls the leather, ripped and frayed, he can see down Loki’s collar to the bruises all yellow and sickly and purpling around his throat. He throws him back as he feels himself being overwhelmed. He’s too tired for this, for Loki, for tricks or games, or even for the truth and his relief is bitter round the edges because it means he’ll have to suffer this again sometime. Thunder rumbles somewhere far off. Loki steps back, catching himself before he falls and looks up, squinting a little.  
“I didn’t mean it like that” Loki tries with that forced charisma he carries in his pocket for moments just like this. It’s fast worn off on Thor.  
“No you didn’t but I took it like that” Thor says on a distant sigh, hands on his hips as he kicks the dusty ground. Loki is still breathless looking, tense and edgy and staring at Thor like he can’t quite believe it’s him. Oh Thor knows that feeling. “It’s not fun is it?” He sounds bitingly harsh to his own ears and Loki flinches. “Thinking you’ve lost someone. You don’t really know how to feel once they’re-”  
“Standing right in front of you” Loki finishes, watching Thor carefully, movements coiled and snake like before he sighs, eyebrows raised. “Well, you’re here and so am I.” He drops his hands to his side. “I feel like you want me to apologise for that” It’s argumentative. Loki is itching for a fight.  
“I don’t know what I want” Thor mumbles. ‘I thought you were gone and I was terrified’ is left unsaid. “Come inside. It’s getting cold”  
Loki rubs his temples, tucking a strand of hair out his eyes.  
“Do you want a change of clothes or something?” Thor asks, suddenly awkward as Loki sits on his bed, dragging in dust and blood and a universe worth of unspoken tension. The house might not handle it.  
“Do I want a change of clothes” Loki repeats, practically a whisper and shakes his head hopelessly, laugh catching in the back of his throat. Thor doesn’t get the joke but it’s nice to see Loki smile even if it’s twisted and sad. “If you have one”  
Thor nods and places a folded shirt beside him, dark and threadbare grey, probably belonging to whoever lived here before them. Loki looks away, sniffing and undoing the leather, what’s left of it anyway. He glances at Loki’s bare back, littered with cuts and bruises that stand out on his pale skin in a way they don’t on Thor. He almost wants to reach out. Loki notices.  
“What?”  
“Nothing”  
“Sure?”  
“Yes”  
Loki bites his lip and shuts his eyes, Thor can see them roll behind his eyelid before he pulls on the shirt, doing up the buttons and pulling on the loose trousers. They’re much to big for him and Thor smiles gently. Loki let’s his shoulders drop for the first time since he saw him on the hillside, guard finally down. Thor notices that he’s still trembling, just a little. In the low cut shirt those bruises are obvious. So much for a trick. It looks very real to Thor.  
“How did you find me?” Thor asks.  
“I was coming to find the others...” Loki says, voice tight with grief. “To see if they knew what had happened to you”  
It’s brave, Thor thinks, given how Rodgers would likely react seeing Loki in the aftermath of everything that’s happened or maybe Loki had a death wish. His heart tightens. Loki really might have had a death wish. Thor won't lie he’s thought- hoped that maybe one of these battles might finish him off, he has very little to live for now. It’s unlikely in Loki’s case, he’d always been more adaptable than Thor.  
“And here you were” Loki says, it’s trying to be sarcastic but it’s broken with relief. He looks small, curled against the headboard of the bed, chin balanced on his knee and shirt rolled to the elbow, nail hanging off a bottom tooth and staring at the wall.  
“So how’d you do it?” Thor leans against the wall, arms crossed. “How long did you have that little charade planned? Did you know Thanos was coming?” It isn’t meant to sound as suspicious as it does. Loki looks up, jaw slack.  
“Do you really think I’d have stayed if I knew he was coming?” He raises an eyebrow and glances over, tone incredulous.  
“I don’t know” Thor huffs. “You’re weird”  
Loki blinks, prolonged and petulant but ignores the comment. “I didn’t know”  
Thor clenches his jaw. “You’re not answering my question”  
“No I’m not” Loki says, sighing and stretching out like a cat.  
“Those bruises-”  
“I didn’t plan anything” Loki bites out, a strand of hair falling across his eyes. It makes Thor stop. “I thought I was going to die” He continues but cuts himself off with a frown. “But I thought If I could distract Thanos- If I could just-” Jaw clenched, he smiles. “I don’t know”  
“You were going to die” Thor says, slowly, it’s not much of a question but it makes his head buzz.  
“I’d redeemed myself, hadn’t I? We saved them together...We were going to rebuild it together.” Loki closes his eyes, he always hated melodrama and Thor knows this must be painfully awkward for him. “Thanos came and I watched it all fall apart and for once I wasn’t the one doing it-”  
“It’s not nice is it?” Thor says, tone slightly too didactic and Loki gives him a dry look.  
“No” He drawls. “It’s not.” He clears his throat. “So yes- You’re all tied up and I thought if I bought you some time, even if it cost me my life- I knew it would cost me my life- I thought you might be proud” Loki looks down and lets out a sigh that sounds annoyed but Thor watches the tear drop off the pretty edge of his nose, hitting the blanket with a little ‘pap’. “I mean it was my fault” Loki laughs, hopeless and angry. “I brought the tesseract...It was my problem to solve.” He’s shaking now and Thor desperately wants to console him but he’ll scare him off if he touches him now. Like trying to pet a frightened animal. “They died because of me...and I couldn’t bare to look you in the eye- I can’t bare to look at you now” Loki gasps, wrenched from his throat. “But when he got me, I guess even until the end I thought we had a chance” He adds as an aside. “Hand around my throat...I’d never felt fear like it. So I did what I always do and I cheated” He grits his teeth. “He won...I died, I should have died but I was so scared, Thor” He looks up then, eyes frantic and open and vulnerable for the first time since they were boys. “I was terrified and I couldn’t let go...of you, of life, of any of it but I should have because you don’t deserve to be put through this again”  
Thor doesn’t realise he’s crying himself until something close to a laugh bubbles up his throat. “That’s a good story” He says, biting his lip to stop from truly, openly sobbing.  
“Brother-” Loki is saying, eyes wide and genuine as if to say ‘it’s the whole truth’ and oh gods that makes it worse. He braces against the table but the wood splinters.  
“So we’re both deadmen” Thor laughs but everything feels painful, like there is this weight on his chest that won't shift.  
“I’ve died twice” Loki says, soft and his head tilts to try and get Thor’s attention to check if he’s okay. How can they both care so much and be so unable to show it? Thor sometimes hates himself.  
“I can’t believe you’re here” Thor whispers. His throat is aching from holding back violent sobs.  
“Neither can I” Loki sounds candid. It’s an unnerving new character trait. “Searching for you...realising you weren’t anywhere...” Loki stands, coming closer, bare feet padding softly against the stone floor. “Thinking I’d lost you” He touches Thor’s shoulder gently and Thor spins, catching both Loki’s shoulders in one. Loki’s hand is still caught in midair, eyes a little wide from the suddenness of Thor’s grab. He can feel Loki’s pulse through his arms, it’s alarmingly fast. He watches Loki’s jaw clench, the uncertainty of what Thor might do making him tense. He just wants to make it better, make Loki stop looking so terrified by everything because he has no right to look so broken now, after feigning detachment through their whole lives. Before he can help himself, he ducks his head forward, crushing their lips together, hard and desperate and nothing like the way he kissed Jane, he’d always been a little scared of hurting her. He actively wants to hurt Loki, who shudders as Thor pulls back, realising exactly what he’s doing and suddenly horrified at himself. Loki follows his lips, eyes fluttering open. Thor drops his grip, leaving Loki looking dazed. It’s a powerfully attractive look on him. On his brother. His brother. They’re so fucked.  
Loki swallows “Do that again”  
“No” Thor says, stern and final.  
“Why not?” Loki steps forward, he laughs harshly. “Why not, Thor?”  
“Because it’s wrong” Thor snaps but he feels woozy with the weight of everything. Loki is here and alive and so perfect and everything Thor has denied himself and more and who’s left to stop them?  
“Who cares?” Loki snaps. “Who’s left to care?” He adds, softer and gut-wrenchingly sad. “It’s the end of the world, Thor”  
He steps close again, one hand round Loki’s waist and the other cupping his cheek in the facsimile of a romantic embrace.  
“Don’t make me say it” Loki snarls, nose curling and eyes brimming with tears that make his cheeks flush.  
“I won't” Thor says, unsure he can say it himself. After everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve lost. He can’t vocalise the one thing he wants to because once he has, there is no going back and who knows how all of this will end. He doesn’t want to leave Loki with the weight of his love and honestly, he doesn’t want the weight of Loki’s.  
“Please” Loki says into Thor’s chest. Thor wants to think they deserves this, this moment of respite but they don’t. They’re gods, gods who had a duty to protect their people and who failed. Could they really do this? Did they really deserve each other?  
The question is echoed in Loki’s eyes. Sea green on sky blue, unsure who’s reflecting who anymore. The night is going on around them. In the morning Thor will have to take Loki to the others which will be joyous he’s sure of. They’re on borrowed time already. The fragile peace that has fallen across the universe in the wake of the complete devastation- Thor can feel the silence, omnipotent around them both- will end inevitably and he’ll be forced to fight again. Loki’s tensed for rejection, already closing himself off, probably thinking of some witty one liner to cover up his hurt.  
“Okay” Thor says and Loki’s head bolts up to meet his eyes.  
He fucks Loki like it’s the last time they’ll ever see each other. Too afraid to make this a beginning, too afraid to start anything incase it’s taken away and Loki seems to appreciate it, curled against Thor, bruised and broken and unsure of where they stand. Thor thinks this must be one of the first times he’s seemingly had full control over Loki, currently arching and gasping underneath him. Head tilted back against the bed, showing off the line of his neck, elegant and long and blossomed in bruises. Thor curls his hand around where Thano’s had been and Loki’s emerald eyes flash open but there isn’t an ounce of fear in them, in fact he tilts his chin back like an invitation.  
“You’ve got warm hands” he whispers and Thor smiles. It’s not fast or rushed, he takes his time on Loki, like he’s always wanted to. Even when Loki begs, voice hoarse, he still doesn’t because there is something precious about him, vulnerable and almost pitiful that Thor has never noticed before. 

When Loki comes, harsh and gasping, chest concave for a moment, Thor almost thinks he hear’s him whisper I love you but it honestly could have been the wind or Thor’s imagination.  
Loki pants, soft and gentle, eyes struggling to stay open and Thor wonders if he’s slept since the last time they saw each other. Thor had only just managed a night or so ago and Loki seems to have been on the move.  
“Will you be here in the morning?” Thor asks, hand trailing patterns over Loki’s skin, the dip of his collar and up to his cheek, as he balances on one elbow, hand cupping the side of his head. Loki laughs, it makes him bounce up a little off the bed as he stares at the ceiling.  
“I don’t know. Will I?” He asks, voice soft and eyebrows quirking. Thor pushes his finger into the nasty looking thumb print on the side of Loki’s neck. “Ow! OwOw! Yes! I will!” Loki snaps, swatting Thor’s hand away.  
“Good” Thor murmurs, smile fond. “I’m glad you’re okay”  
“And I you, Brother” Loki smiles back.  
So much is still left unsaid but then again that’s always been the way with them. Maybe too much has happened to really ever be spoken about but they have each other and they each know the full extent of the others pain. Thor thinks, as the sun rises on half the world, maybe that’s enough for now.


End file.
